Alfred Jules Ayer Full name Alfred Jules Ayer Born 27 October 1910 London Died 28 June 1989 (aged 78) London Era 20th-century philosophy Region Western Philosophy School Analytic Main interests Language, Epistemology, Ethics, Meaning, Science Notable ideas Logical positivism, verification principle, emotivist ethics Influenced by[show] Influenced[show

In 1988, shortly before his death, Ayer wrote an article entitled, "What I saw when I was dead",^[16] describing an unusual near-death experience. Of the experience, Ayer first said that it "slightly weakened my conviction that my genuine death ... will be the end of me, though I continue to hope that it will be."^[17] However, a few days later he revised this, saying "what I should have said is that my experiences have weakened, not my belief that there is no life after death, but my inflexible attitude towards that belief".^[18]
In 2001 Dr. Jeremy George, the attending physician, claimed that Ayer had confided to him: "I saw a Divine Being. I'm afraid I'm going to have to revise all my books and opinions." Ayer's son Nick, however, said that he had never mentioned this to him though he did find his father's words to be extraordinary, and said he had long felt there was something possibly suspect about his father's version of his near death experience.^[19]